Please describe your unique foster care journey and how it has impacted your life?

Our oldest son was adopted privately in 2011, and we wanted to grow our family through adoption again.  After some research we decided that foster care was the best option for us.  We became licensed in November 2011, and in March of 2012 our first placement arrived.  Her name was Charri and she was a 4lb, 11 day old infant ready to leave the NICU.  She was placed with our family and stayed for over 3 years before reunifying with her biological father in 2015. 

After this, we continued to foster children.  We had a few short-term placements and then in 2016, we welcomed a 1-year-old little girl into our family for about a year.  She ended up moving out of state to live with a relative.  After this, we took only short-term emergency placements before closing out our license in 2019.  In 2022, Charri was in need of a foster home again, and we were able to welcome her back into our home as a kinship placement.  We became licensed foster parents again in 2023 and adopted Charri in August of 2024!

 

 Can you please describe your family’s love story?

Although we had other placements, I believe our family was led by God into foster care because Charri was meant to be in our family!  We welcomed her into our home as an 11-day old, 4lb preemie and we have considered her our daughter since the very beginning.  We knew reunification with bio family was the goal and supported that the best we could, but that didn’t change our love and connection with Charri.  She stayed with us until she was 3-years-old and her bio dad was given custody. 

After she reunified with her dad, we were able to stay in contact.  We would invite Charri to spend one weekend per month with us and her dad was very supportive of this.  She was also able to come on family vacations with us, and would spend her birthday and some holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with us.  She had a close relationship with her bio dad, but never stopped calling Michael and I mom and dad when she was with us.  She considered our other kids her siblings and they thought of her as their sister.  As she started school, her dad reached out to me to help him communicate with the school and I would attend conferences and other school functions.  When her private school refused to provide her busing, we advocated for her and were even featured on a news story about lack of busing!

In 2022, Charri’s bio dad unexpected passed away in his sleep.  She called us and within a few days, she was back in our home as a kinship foster care placement.  I reached out to Beech Acres right away and received immediate support and guidance of how to move forward.  Beech Acres told me there was a program for kinship caregivers to get licensed as foster parents, so we began the process and were re-licensed in February 2023.  It was a long process of court dates, social worker visits, meetings with the GAL, and paperwork but finally, we got to adoption day.  On August 1, 2024, Charri officially joined our family through adoption!  We are so thankful that she is now a permanent member of our family forever.

 

What moved you to make the decision to love bravely and open your home and life to foster and adoption?

Our initial motivation was to adopt a child, but over time a passion for foster care grew.  We began to understand why reunification with biological family is the goal and to find ways to connect with and support bio family.  We saw the great number of vulnerable children in our community who needed foster families to step in when their parents were not in a position to safely parent them. 

 

How do you make the children placed into your care feel welcome into the home and part of the family?

We treat them like our other kids – it’s really as simple as that!  We are blessed with an amazing extended family who always welcomed our foster children and included them in everything as well.

 

How has Beech Acres helped you throughout the foster care process? What are some challenges BAPC helped with?

Beech Acres has been amazing throughout our entire 12 year journey!  They were there at the beginning, walking us through the licensing process and guiding us through our first placement.  The foster care system can be slow-moving, frustrating, and seem to make no sense at times.  It was always to reassuring to be able to reach out to Beech Acres for support and to feel heard and understood through all the setbacks.  Even when we were no longer licensed, I maintained a friendship with two Beech Acres staff members and they would give me advice when it was needed as we maintained our relationship with Charri and her bio dad post reunification.  On the day Charri’s dad died, it was the weekend, but my Beech Acres contacts answered the phone and helped us figure out how to proceed.  Then, the very first week we were kinship parents, Beech Acres was so supportive in helping us figure out how to quickly and efficiently get re-licensed.  After we were licensed, Beech Acres helped us navigate the foster care system once again and supported us on our journey to adopt Charri.  They have truly been there for all the big moments on this journey!  And our former Beech Acres social worker cared so deeply about Charri that she still reaches out and maintains a relationship with us and Charri even post adoption. 

 

What would you say to families who are considering fostering?

The need for families to open their home and family to vulnerable children is so great!  If you are feeling a tug on your heart to become a foster parent, pursue that, because it is a huge need that you are being called to meet.  There are so many reasons you can come up with of why the time isn’t right, but I would encourage you to jump into the process.  There are many challenges that can come with fostering a child, but when it comes to the child or children that are placed with you, you will do your best to meet their specific needs.  You can’t fix or solve the entire foster care system, but you can make a huge difference in the life of one child and that matters incredibly.

 

What are some things you have learned throughout fostering – about yourself/your family/or in general?

We have learned to be flexible and let go of the control we wish we could have over the foster care process.  We had to learn to be okay with not knowing the future, not knowing how long our foster child would be with us, not having a timeline of any kind that we could count on.  That is a tough thing for most Americans – we like plans, schedules, timelines, calendars and we want to have control over that.  With foster care, you have to surrender that need for control and do your best to care for that child each day you have them, without being guaranteed anything about their future with your family.

We had to learn how to maintain relationships with bio family that came from very different cultures and backgrounds than us.  We had to be kind despite mean things being said about us, and realize that the child benefits most when the adults can get along and work together.

 

What were some of the more difficult parts of fostering and what helped you get through those hard parts?

One of the most difficult parts is the waiting and the setbacks.  We would be looking forward to a court date only to have nothing happen to move the case forward.  It helped me to take one day at a time, focusing on being the best foster parent that day, and trying not to worry about the future.  There’s never guarantees with foster care, so you have to be flexible and let go of control.

Relationships with biological family were difficult at times.  Our motives have been questions by bio family and we have felt very misunderstood.  It helped to remind ourselves of our true motivations and intentions as foster parents, and realize that a lot of the mean things that were said were out of a place of hurt and misunderstanding.